Broken Glass
by underdog82
Summary: AU, "Just like the old nightmares came with the rain, these new nightmares come with the snow."  Mention of character death.  Not Roy/Ed this time.
1. Broken

**Broken**

Roy stood at the picture window and swept his steady gaze over the thick blanket of snow that had settled over his neighborhood. Some might have called the view peaceful, but he found it suffocating. He closed his eyes and tried to steel himself against the coming storm.

The sound of Riza's bare feet on the thick carpet echoed in his head as she approached. "We're going to bed."

"Alright." He wanted to turn. To smile and kiss her goodnight. But his limbs were as cold and stiff as those of the tree in the front yard. Even if he had pushed it out of his heart…even if he could shut down his mind…his body could still feel it coming. Riza's footsteps retreated upstairs and after a few moments, the absence of sound roared in his brain as his ears strained to pick up the first sign.

There was no mistaking the plaintive squeak of the hinge on the back gate. To Roy, the sound seemed to reverberate through the whole house and set the tension in his body on fire. Light flooded from the kitchen and reflected in the window in front of him, chasing away his view of the frigid night. He ran his right hand through his hair and turned to face the intruder.

A messy blonde head had just emerged from a cabinet and was heading toward the freezer. On flesh hand grasped the handle and one metal hand braced the thin body against the counter.

"Edward."

Startled, wide, golden eyes met Roy's dark ones, and Roy's stomach dropped. The young man's eyes had dulled, sunken into a pale, gaunt face. The older man mentally kicked himself for seeing the drastic change for the first time.

"There is no alcohol in the house."

Edward pushed himself away from the refrigerator and whirled to face Roy. The instantaneous anger immediately melted away and left a pathetically lost expression. "Please?"

Roy ignored the urge to walk away and avoid the situation altogether. However, he still could not yet bring himself to leave the safety of the doorway. "We talked about this last time. I got rid of it."

"Why?" Ed's tone was half pleading and half accusing.

At that moment, the cry of a newborn baby rang out. Roy heard Riza leave their bed and forced himself to stay and watch was Ed absorbed the noise and understanding washed over his face.

"The baby…?"

"Three days ago." Roy wondered briefly if the lump in his throat would ever stop rising when he thought of the child.

"Can I…can I see…"

"Not tonight."

The young man opened his mouth, but did not argue, instead dropping into the nearest chair. He placed folded hands on the table and his forehand on his hands.

Roy took a step into the room. "Edward."

"I understand."

"Do you?"

"Yes!" Edward slammed his fists on the table. "Dammit, Mustang, I know!" He pulled his hands from the table as though it'd burned him and dropped his voice to a whisper. "I know I'm a fucking mess."

Mustang stepped closer, assessing the situation and trying to formulate a plan. He heard the blonde mumbled through the hands now covering his face once more and made the decision to occupy the chair across the small table. Remembering Riza's lecture on body language, he consciously unfolded his arms and sat forward.

Edward looked up at the older man from under his bangs as though daring him to try and care. He was surprised to find the earnest expression in the dark eyes staring him down and an unexpected surge of emotion rose in his chest. The pressure from the inside ground against the pressure of the heavy, breathtaking silence and he could almost feel the thin shell of his body ripping apart.

The balance had begun to tip, Roy could see the signs. "Edward, speak." The tenderness in his voice surprised him.

Closing his eyes, Edward imagined each molecule in his body giving up and letting go of the next, being sucked into either the vacuum of the world around him, or that of the massive hole inside of him. If this went on long enough, eventually there would be nothing left of him.

"Fullmetal!" Mustang inwardly cringed at his own sharp bark. "Look at me." It had been months since he had pulled rank on the young man, not that rank mattered anymore.

It was enough, however, to pull Edward out of his reverie. His eyes shot open to stair blankly at Roy for several long moments. Suddenly, his whole body slumped as though surrendering. "Fucking hurts tonight."

Roy softened his tone once more, knowing all to well the cruel cycle of memory and pain. "We both know it would." Just like the old nightmares came with the rain, these new nightmares came with the snow. "It would be better to talk than to drink." He wanted to laugh bitterly at the hypocrisy of his own words, but managed to keep his composure.

"That's nice, coming from you."

Mustang cringed and sat back in his chair. "What do you want from me?"

"I want you to let me fix this." Edward straightened. 'Let me try to…"

"No." Roy's tone left no room for argument. He could not let the alchemist carry out his desperate plans. It was inexplicable why Edward only thought of these plans on nights like this one, or why he actually listened when Roy told him no. The old Edward would have scorned Mustang's advice and done what he wanted to. He didn't know whether to be grateful or sad that that had changed. But people did not come back from the dead, and both alchemists knew that for a fact.

Edward could have been reading the man's thoughts. "He might not be dead. He…"

"He's gone, Edward." It was hard to watch such a short sentence completely crush the Fullmetal Alchemist. Looking back, however, Mustang could see the blonde boy sitting on the steps to headquarters, crying for the loss of a little girl. He remembered the distress clouding those golden eyes at the news of Hughes' death. As he watched the same boy—now a young man—crumple into a mess of despair at his kitchen table, his heart broke. When he spoke, he couldn't manage more than a whisper. "I'm sorry."

With his head buried in his arms, Edward's voice came muffled by his coat sleeves. "It's so…empty; I'm so…lonely now."

Roy perked up. Edward had veered off the beaten path of this conversation and expressed a feeling other than pain or rage. They might be getting somewhere. Loneliness could be remedied. "You should go back to Risembool for a while."

Ed peeked over his arms at Roy as though the suggestion was offensive. "I can't."

"Why not?"

"I can't face them after what happened."

Roy had tried to pry Edward away from his guilt. As far as he knew, the guilt was going to be there forever. "They're your family. They love you."

Ed dropped his head back down and didn't reply.

"They care about you, Edward." Roy thought back on all the phone calls from Winry he'd fielded in the last several months.

"Oh do they?" The young man violently pushed himself away from the table. "If everyone cares so much, why am I alone?"

Roy couldn't control the saddened surge of anger. "It's not our fault you push us away." As soon as the words left his mouth, he wished he could take them back.

Edward stood, his eyes blazing. "You know what? You're right. Everything is my fucking fault!" He spun on his heel in a flurry of red and black and slammed the door on his way out.

Immediately, Riza appeared out of the darkness of the living room.

"I'm sorry we woke the baby." Roy couldn't meet his wife's gaze.

The apology, however, did not appease her. "Go after him."

"I don't…"

"Don't lie to me; you know exactly where he's gone."

Roy finally looked up at her, apprehension clouding his dark eyes.

"Edward needs you. You will go after him."

Taking a deep breath, Roy stood and tried to prepare himself both physically and mentally to venture out into the suffocating night.


	2. Glass

**Glass**

Edward's legs were on autopilot. He'd walked this road so many times before that he didn't have to think. Not that he could think. His mind cowered in the back of his head as an unstoppable force inside drove him back to this place—as though a crazy person had hijacked his body and demanded he go through these motions every time the landscape glittered white. As the warmth of Mustang's kitchen drained from his limbs and the frigid night sank heavily into its place, the main thought in the young man's mind was of the distinct lack of alcoholic fuzz in his brain an the tingling emptiness of his flesh hand.

"Hey Al!" Ed called out into the breathtaking north wind. "Where do I get a fucking bottle when the stupid Colonel bastard won't give me one?" Whistling in his ears, the wind blew his bangs across his eyes and did not answer. "Where are you anyway, Al?"

Suddenly, the blast of a train whistle rang out in the distance and Edward's eyes grew wide, his whole body tense. He was only a few blocks from the tracks. He could make it.

_ Edward reached out and carefully dismantled the last alchemic marker as he passed it, taking a long, hard look around him. The snow swirled thickly around him, making it impossible to see in the already pitch-black night. He regretted having to give away his position, but he simply didn't have the time to scope the situation stealthily. "Al! Are you out here?"_

_ "Brother!"_

_ Al's voice came from a spot directly in front of Edward, and the older boy blindly reached through the snow. Just as the tips of his fingers brushed the familiar cool metal shell of his younger brother, the earth beneath him rose up and clasped his arms firmly to his sides._

_ "Finally! An audience with the Fullmetal Alchemist." This new voice was deep and echoed through the empty space, making it difficult to tell where it came from. "I have been dying to meet you."_

_ Ed had no patience for theatrics. "Show your face!"_

_ "Isn't this blizzard serendipitous? Someone is looking out for my success."_

_ "Or they want your defeat to be more humiliating." Ed squinted, and could just make out the hulking form of Al's suit of armor._

_ "Someday, oh great Alchemist of the People, you will learn the pitfalls of ego." The disembodied voice chuckled. "Perhaps someday very soon."_

_ "Not before I kick your ass. Come out and face me, coward!"_

_ "If you do what I ask, maybe I will let you go and you can try to beat me."_

_ Al finally spoke up again. "Don't do it, Brother!"_

_ "Don't worry, Al, I've got this!"_

_ "Whatever he says, Edward, don't do what he asks." Despite his demand, Al sounded resigned._

_ "Or, if you do what I ask, I will let your brother go."_

_ "Don't do it, Brother!"_

_ Edward took a split second to consider. "What do you what?"_

_ "Ah ha! I have found his weak spot. Show me how to raise the dead."_

_ "No." Ed's mind squashed the memories that tried to push through to the forefront and focused on the situation at hand. "It doesn't work anyway."_

_ "I'm sure with enough motivation the boy genius could figure out how to make it work."_

Hawkeye was right. Mustang knew exactly where Edward had gone. He did not, however, know what Edward did there in the snow with the collection of bottles emptied at Mustang's dinning room table. Roy could hardly believe it'd been two years. He pulled his collar higher and then shoved his hands deep into this pockets. How many times had Edward come to the house in those two years? Every time blowing snow made it impossible to see and then settled into a suffocating blanket. Not many, but too many. And how many times did he follow the boy as he staggered drunkenly into the bitter night? None. Absolutely none. Roy swore under his breath as he turned the corner. A train whistle called in the distance. He swore again, louder this time, and began to run.

_ A train whistle sounded in the distance and realization struck Edward in the gut. "Don't worry, Al! I'll get you out of there."_

_ "I'm not worried, Brother, just do the right thing._

Ed's coattails were wet and heavy, clinging to his equally soaked pants legs as he trudged up the small hill to approach the train tracks. The ground beneath his boots already shook slightly from the oncoming train. Stopping short, he glared at the tracks for a short moment, puzzled. He turned his attention to his empty hands, bringing them in from of his face and gracing them with an angry scowl before returning his eyes to the tracks. The discrepancy swirled in his mind and a storm began to brew. His hands fell to his sides and clenched into fists as the train blew its whistle again, louder now that it was closer.

_Edward began tracing a circle in the snow with the toe of his boot, relying on his mind's eye to ensure its accuracy. The train whistle blew again, much closer this time, and the ground began to shake. The snow began to let up and Ed stole a glance at Al, not only tied, but bolted to the tracks. The voice had fallen silent, but the feeling of being watched caused the hairs on the back of Ed's neck to stand up. He could hear the train closing the gap between it and his brother and sick dread settled in the pit of his stomach. 'If he's only smashed,' he tried to reassure himself, 'I can always fix him.'_

The light of the train bathed Edward in its beam and he sank to the ground as though it were a real blow. On the gravel around him, millions of splinters of glass leapt and danced and sparkled, holding his intense gaze as the rush of air from the train finally arriving challenged his sitting balance.

_The screech of the train on the tracks became unbearably loud and Al's voice barely rose above it. "Just don't forget me, Brother!"_

_ Edward had to scream his reply. "Don't be so pessi—"_

_ In a split second, the steady chug of the train was covered by an almost musical shattering sound and the air all around the young blonde filled with tiny shards of silver, twinkling in the moonlight as it finally broke through the clouds._

Roy approached the small hill leading to the tracks with the same heavy dread he remembered sucking the felling from his limbs the first time he'd come here. In the silence that settled over the landscape, he spotted the silhouette of the young man sitting next to the tracks with his knees pulled to his chest, motionless. He hesitated, debating in his mind whether it would be better to make his presence known right away or not. His decision was made for him when an agonized sound ripped from the blonde alchemist's throat. In two long strides, Mustang was crouched behind Ed and grabbed his hands before they could pull out any hair. "Please don't."

Edward screamed again, his whole body tense and stiff. He pulled out of Mustang's grasp and leaped out of reach, turning to face the dark-haired man, but unable to make eye contact. He pulled his hair and then dragged his fingernails down the sides of his face. His chest heaved with each breath as he stood and turned his back, then turned again and collapsed back into the snow. "I can't…I just can't…"

Mustang took a tentative step forward. "Can't what?"

"I can't handle this!" The response came out as a cross between a shriek and a growl, and Edward's hands once more crept toward his scalp, shaking. He gasped for air.

Another step, and Roy placed a tentative hand on Ed's shoulder. "Edward…"

Ed tried to brush the hand off and turn away, but Roy tightened his grip.

"Edward, listen to me." Mustang lifted his other hand to grasp Ed's other shoulder. "Right now all you need to do is breathe."


End file.
